Escort Missions - Please Act Like a Human!
Escort missions are sections or levels where you essentially have to babysit an NPC and help them accomplish a task or find safety. Including an escort mission in a game can be a major risk, they are notorious for being something gamers hate to see. However, they can be done well, but doing so is no easy task. Games such as Bioshock Infinite and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, are rare examples of games that are almost entirely escort missions, but which do it right, and the main reason why is the realistic AI. When designing an escort mission, the important thing to keep in mind is “what would a real person do?” The worst characters to escort are the ones who cower in a corner, who seem to be completely incapable of taking care of themselves in anyway, who move at a snail’s pace, or who, heaven forbid, stand immobile between you and the enemy. A good character to escort would behave logically, if they have no combat experience, it’s unlikely they would try to help fight, but it’s even less likely they would simply stand there while getting wailed on by an enemy. They may even search for ammo and supplies, like Elizabeth does in Bioshock Infinite, or use what skills they do have to temporarily distract the enemy, giving the player a chance to get the upper hand, like Trip in Enslaved. And they should at least move at a logical pace, if the character is truly helpless, there is no reason why they wouldn’t want to keep up with the player, and having them hang back, and move slowly, even if the reasons are out of fear, is simply unrealistic, and adds unnecessary extra time to the gameplay. Example #1 Dragon's Dogma ' ' In Dragon's Dogma you are occationally given tasks to accompany an NPC to various locations around the world. The game sees these quests as something like dates, which is really strange considering that sometimes you may be leading the NPC to a peaceful spring, but more often than not you find yourself taking them to some enemy infested area. The NPC's like to stick close by you, which is helpful when not surrounded by enemies, because you never have to worry about hanging back to wait for them to walk slowly up a hill, or around a pond. But it becomes a real problem during combat where they continue to want to stay pressed right up against you. One of the mechanics in the game is the ability to climb large enemies. This becomes a real problem when escorting an NPC as they will run around the base of the enemy, wanting to stay close to you, and often get flattened. That is just not someting a real person would ever do. Example 2 ''Bioshock'' The escort mission in the original Bioshock was extremely difficult for many players, and it was entirely due the design of the escort AI. Unfortunately the designers chose this mechanic as their primary mechanic in the sequel. Go figure. Example #3 Resident Evil 4 Oh the joys of escorting Ashley in RE4. She constanty gets in the way, cowers, whines...pretty much all the things described here as super irritating and unrealistic. This is one of the more frustrating moments from an otherwise awesome game.